Miskatonic Monday #355: Burton’s Motel: A 1920s Call of Cthulhu One-Shot

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Burton’s Motel: A 1920s Call of Cthulhu One-Shot

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Bart Verhoeven

Setting: New England, 1923

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty-four-page, 60.10 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Psycho meets Call of Cthulhu

Plot Hook: “Inside No. 9: Where things aren’t what they seem, and the truth is always a twist.” – Inside No. 9

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, nine handouts, three maps, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Classic, stormy night, motel horror
# Easy to adapt to different eras

# Obvious in its inspiration, but different

# Covers all the eventualities

# Lost-o-phobia

# Hodophobia

# Sciophobia

Cons

# Investigator backgrounds would have been nice
# Keeper may want to adjust Investigator numbers

# Needs a slight edit

Conclusion

# Serviceable, service-based one-night horror

# Would be tighter and better motivated with Investigator backgrounds